Film and cameras that are all in one, commonly referred to as single-use or one-time-use cameras, have become well known. The one-time-use camera is a simple point-and-shoot type comprising an opaque plastic main body part that supports a conventional film cartridge in a cartridge receiving chamber, an unexposed film roll prewound from the film cartridge onto a film supply spool in a film supply chamber, a fixed-focus taking lens, a film metering mechanism with a rotatably supported metering sprocket that engages the filmstrip, a manually rotatable film winding thumbwheel rotatably engaged with a film take-up spool inside the film cartridge, a single-blade shutter, a manually depressible shutter release button, a rotatable frame counter for indicating the number of exposures remaining to be made on the filmstrip, a direct see-through viewfinder having front and rear viewfinder lenses, and in some models an electronic flash. A pair of opaque plastic front and rear cover parts house the main body part between them to complete the camera unit. The rear cover part connects to the main body part and/or to the front cover part to make the main body part light-tight. A decorative cardboard outer box or label at least partially covers the camera unit and has respective openings for the taking lens, etc.
After each picture is taken with the one-time-use camera, the photographer manually rotates the thumbwheel in a film winding direction to similarly rotate the film take-up spool inside the film cartridge. This winds an exposed frame of the filmstrip into the film cartridge. The rewinding movement of the filmstrip the equivalent of slightly more than one frame width rotates the metering sprocket in engagement with the filmstrip to decrement the frame counter to its next lower-numbered setting and to pivot a metering lever into engagement with the thumbwheel in order to prevent further manual rotation of the thumbwheel. Manually depressing the shutter release button to take another picture pivots the metering lever out of engagement with the thumbwheel to permit renewed rotation of the thumbwheel. When the maximum number of exposures available on the filmstrip have been made, and the filmstrip is completely wound into the film cartridge, the one-time-use camera is given to a photofinisher who tears the outer box off the camera unit, separates the rear cover part from the main body part, and removes the film cartridge with the exposed filmstrip from the cartridge receiving chamber. Then, he removes the exposed filmstrip from the film cartridge to develop the latent images and make prints for the customer. At least some of the used camera parts may be recycled, i.e. reused, to remanufacture the camera.
Prior art U.S. Pat. No. 5,596,385 issued Jan. 21, 1997 discloses a method of opening a one-time-use camera to obtain the film cartridge with the exposed filmstrip. According to the method, a knife cuts away corresponding bottom portions of the front and rear cover parts and the main body part to make a bottom access opening to the cartridge receiving chamber. Then, the film cartridge is removed from the cartridge receiving chamber through the opening. The main body part is relatively expensive to manufacture as compared to the front and rear cover parts and, therefore, is preferred to be recycled. However, since the knife cuts the bottom portion of the main body part off when the bottom portions of the front and rear cover parts are cut off, it is not practical to attempt to recycle the main body part.